If I Never Knew You
by Manille
Summary: Yu Yu Hakusho -- an old woman ponders upon a lost love...


**If I Never Knew You  
**_by Keiko no Miko_

_**If I never knew you  
If I never felt this love  
I would have no inkling of  
How precious life can be**_

Like so many times before, I tread on this familiar path, and even as the grass is always trampled upon and turns brown before I know it, here it is again, fresh and green and alive. I smile as I notice small purple flowers seeking their way up among the grass, as if trying to push their way through the crowd to marvel at the sun.

It is a warm summer morning, barely even seven. I squint as I try to look at the sky. It reminds me of those times when I would just catch myself staring at it, trying to form the faces of my friends amongst the fluffy white clouds.

But now I find it hard to do just that, without my glasses. There are so many things you can do while you're young, and when you can't do them anymore and you realize you're aging, you will feel a twinge of regret. So better make the most out of every day.

I guess I learned _that_ lesson through experience. 

Did I regret what had happened?

WellI supposewhat I did wasn't enough. 

But even though the agony is carried within me for almost fifty years, I am glad I knew—I had him. And I am already thankful for those eighteen years.

_**And if I never held you  
I would never have a clue  
How at last I'd find in you  
The missing part of me**_

My earliest memories included him—I've known him since kindergarten. We played tag and teased each other and fought wildly and climbed trees and got bruises together. I can remember chasing him around when he suddenly fell on a pond. I can recall the day when he was alone in the playground, and I saw him, and I invited him to play with me. And when I was the one who was alone, he'd drop his toy gun and flop down beside me and play marbles with me.

Before our teens, we were already used to shouting at each other like a little married couple. His reputation of being a bully was already known; I was becoming more popular in school as regards academics and co-curricular activities. 

This went on during our early teens and junior high. By then he was a known delinquent and an alleged gangster, but I knew better. Everyone was afraid of him, but not me. The slaps were getting more frequent.

We were worlds apart, I know, but we were still friends. Up to now, I wonder why we never left each other. Maybe it was partly because of him. When the teasing went too far, I cried; then that evening, he'd climb our walls and hang on a branch of a tree beside my bedroom window and stay there until he is completely sure I am okay with it. And afterwards, he'd tease me again. 

I don't think I would have survived life if it weren't for him, for that protecting hand had a strong fist to accompany. He warded off bullies and thugs who dared hurt me. And even I have to admit it—he was sent to the dean many times because of protecting me.

But then again, I guess I have something to do with our bond. I forgave him whenever he flipped up my skirt or groped around my body or anything ungentlemanly to do—though I had to slap him too. I tended after his wounds and bruises that he acquired after getting into a fight. I kept his house if his mother was too drunk to clean it.

He even had those times when he just felt like talking—and I don't mean nonsense. And who would want to listen to someone who scares away 99 percent of the school population? Well, I guess it's one of the remaining one percent. Me.

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been if we didn't meet in that kindergarten class. I would have been a very different person. A morenormal one. Well, if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have seen monsters of all sorts face to face.

Butno. I think—I'm _sure_ I wouldn't be complete if I hadn't known him.

_**In this world so full of fear  
Full of rage and lies  
I can see the truth so clear  
In your eyes, so dry your eyes**_

He was a warrior. He was a born fighter. Even I had seen that when we were young. He was headstrong and spirited and all the time lucky, and he carried some sort of an aura everywhere he went that seemed to tell everyone he comes near, "Here I am so better get out of here before I do something you'll regret later on."

But you know what? I was always beside him. I never was afraid of him. The only times I was afraid of him was when he would face death and deal with it. He would look at it in the eye, and all I could do was to watch helplessly. And even at most times, I wasn't there to watch.

I remember this one time before he went away to fight. I wanted to tell him that I didn't want him to go, but I knew I couldn't argue with him. I always let him do what he wanted. If I could see that he was happy with what he was doing, I was happy.

But I could hold on my tears no longer that cold night. As he walked away, he turned around and saw me. I brushed my tears away and smiled, urging him to move on, but he didn't budge.

Finally, he walked over to me. We stared at each other for a long moment, until he drew me close and held me tight, warming my body and my heart. 

"Don't cry," he whispered to my ear softly as he smoothed my hair. "I'll come back. I promise."

I broke away and gazed at his eyes. And even if he was going to a world of monsters, I could see clearly in his eyes, gems that showed the depths of his soul so clearly, that he _would_ come back.

"I won't let you down, Keiko," he told me, trailing a finger down the path that my tears made on my cheek.

And you know what? He didn't let me down. I don't think he ever did.

_**And I'm so grateful to you  
I'd have lived my whole life through  
Lost forever  
If I never knew you....**_

I smile as I realize that I had stopped on my tracks because of reminiscing the happy times. Not that I would call my life at it is now melancholy.

In fact, I believe that even if he isn't here now, he gave meaning to my life. In just a few simple gestures, he did just that—changed my whole life. And I will be forever grateful I knew him.

_**If I never knew you  
I'd be safe but half as real  
Never knowing I could feel  
A love so strong and true  
I'm so grateful to you  
I'd have lived my whole life through  
Lost forever  
If I never knew you....**_

I kneel down, and without a word I put down the bouquet of daisies I was carrying with me. I take away those flowers I placed here a week ago, when I last visited. 

I sigh, and smile as I flop down on the cool grass. "Ne, ohayo gozaimasu, Yusuke."

Of course no one answers me. All I can do is imagine that Urameshi Yusuke turns around to face me and give me one of his smiles. Everyone thought that his smiles were bold and brazen, seemingly assured that he'd triumph at whatever. But when that smile is turned to meit takes a different meaning. It's a smile of encouragement, of hope. 

It's the smile I fell in love with.

I always dream of him smiling down on me, but when I open my eyes, reality washes over me and I realize what the sky knows all the time. 

He's not here anymore. And I won't see him again until I myself quit this world.

_**I thought our love would be so beautiful  
Somehow we'd make the whole world bright  
I never knew that fear and hate could be so strong  
All they'd leave us were these whispers in the night  
But still my heart is saying we were right...**_

I trace a finger on the marble tombstone, where the name "Urameshi Yusuke" is engraved in Kanji letters. Then, his date of birtha few months before mine. Then, the date he died.

I look at my hands. How time has passed since then. At that time, my fingers weren't twisted and rough yet. My hair was the color of mahogany, not of silver. There were no lines on my face yetI was a youthful, lovely girl, not an old woman who has never married.

Why, you ask? Why haven't I married? I suppose I would have. There were some men after Yusuke, suitors from high school, but I knew my feelings towards each of them are no match to what I felt for the only man I would ever love. They left one by one, perhaps thinking that this grieving woman needed a rest, until I was alone.

I felt lost then. I stopped going to school, I fought with my parents, I even went to the extent of smoking and drinking. I was then like his mother, to be honest. And I blamed it on the loss of Yusuke. The idiot for leaving me

_**Oh, if I never knew you (There's no moment I regret)  
If I never knew this love (Since the moment that we met)  
I would have no inkling of (If our time has gone too fast)  
How precious life can be.... (I've lived at last....)**_

Until, in the midst of one of my drinking binges, he came to me in a dream. Or maybe it was just a hallucination. But what I can still remember clearly is the way his brown eyes dulled when he couldn't find the old me inside my body. "Where's the Yukimura Keiko I had known?" he asked.

I had cried then. I cried for the loss of him, for the loss of _myself_. I never knew I had lost that much since he quit this world.

"No, you haven't lost me," he said, touching my face with his hands, those that I have missed so much, those hands that I had spent countless evenings dreaming of feeling again. "You'll never lose me."

"What are you talking about?" I gasped as his words twisted a knife into my heart. "I lost you the moment you got killed—right before my eyes."

Yusuke's eyes were shadowed by melancholy. "Keiko-chando you remember."

"Rememberwhat?" I asked softly.

"Rememberwhy I died?"

I shook my head. I didn't even bother to think. My past was already dulled by gallons of sake and packets of tobacco. I had pushed everything away, everything! And all that had remained in my mind was him. Him.

"I diedsaving you, Keiko."

It all came back to mehe was lying in my arms, and his face was twisted in agony and pain. My tears were flowing freely, and it was hard to see him in my blurred vision. But I felt his stiffening body, his energy flowing out of him.

"How could youhow could you?" It was all I had uttered, and I had said it so incoherently that I don't think he ever heard me. I was the one who was supposed to die. I was the one who was supposed to be lying there, with Yusuke crying for me.

But Yusuke had turned fate around. His youkai inheritance was wasted. All because of me. Just because he loved me.

I rememberedthe last thing he told mebefore he breathed his last.

"You're never aloneAi shite iru, Keiko-chan."

And before my dream of him ended, he pulled me close for a passionate kiss.

_**I thought our love would be so beautiful (so beautiful)  
Somehow we'd make the whole world bright  
I thought our love would be so beautiful  
We'd turn the darkness into light  
And still my heart is saying we were right  
We were right....**_

It was what had kept me alive through all these years. Knowing that Yusuke loved me with all his heart and soul, even in his death. Knowing that the last thing he told me—he told the whole universe—was "Ai shite iru, Keiko-chan."

"O-kaasan."

I quickly wipe my tears away as I hear his voice. Before I could even turn around, his arm is around me.

"I have been looking all over for you, kaasan," he tells me. "I knew you would be here."

I will myself to stare back at him, at this married man with a happy family. At his eyes. The same warm brown that had stared back at me many years ago. The same eyes that had told me that he loves me even without uttering a single syllable.

Our son. Yusuke and mine. The last gift he gave me. The only proof of our love for one another. Love that is pure; love that is much more powerful than life—and than death itself.

Miraculously, our son survived my depression years ago.

Yusuke didn't even have the chance to see his son born. He looks just like his father.

"O-kaasan."

I crack a small smile. "Yes?"

Yusuke—yes, I gave him his father's name—smiles back at me. "Let's go home."

_**And if I never knew you  
I'd have lived my whole life through....**_

My son helps me up. 

"Thank you, Yusuke."

Somehow, I seem to thank two persons at a time.

_Thank youI love you, Yusuke._

_**...Empty as the sky  
Never knowing why  
Lost forever  
If I never knew you....**_

* * *

**Author's notes:** I'm in an angsty mood today, though I don't know why. =P Anyway, I began this fic months ago (even before I wrote "Where Love Is") but I only got around to finishing this today, May 23, 2000. "If I Never Knew You" is performed by Jon Secada and Shanice for the soundtrack of _Pocahontas_. _Yu Yu Hakusho_ is a property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Fuji TV, Studio Pierrot, Shounen Jump Comics, and Shuiessha.

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